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Hi, Graeme. Sheesh, dude, I'd accuse you of reading my notes, except you
got the name a little wrong. I actually call the genre Warchess [shorter
names make better titles]... :-)
Seriously, thank you for the compliment, and you are right; this is an
attempt to push chess right to the edge of wargaming, but still keeping it
chess and not a combat simulation wargame. The specific chess features that
I think are key here are: perfect information; symmetrical armies; no
random events [eg: combat results table]; checkmatable [high] king;
directional pawns; and the essential 'chessness' of the pieces [in that
they are in theory an 'army', but in practice, each piece has moves that
are very non-real-world]. I hope you find it worth the anticipation. It
still has to 'play well' to be any good. A game that size that plays
poorly, or merely 'okay', is a catastrophe.
I think fort is a bit of a kludge. I think it has too many pieces
[100/side] and an awkward starting setup [too deep]. I'm also trying to
test several things at once, which is rarely a good idea. But I think
it's got a real shot at playing well in its simplest, easiest form, and
is also very tweakable, if necessary. I'm ready to find out now, the
invite is up.